Lover's Knot by Emilie Richards Page A

surrounding woods. The fine mist that had played around the tree trunks like ghostly wood nymphs was gone, and shapes had emerged. Earlier a trio of deer had nibbled at the edges of the clearing, casually observing her observing them.
    Every day she visually measured the newly emerging leaves on the closest tree shading the house, noting the subtle differences. Today she was almost certain it was an oak. Next week, when the telephone company installed a land line to the cabin and she could access the Internet, she would visit an online bookseller and order guides to help identify her environment.
    On waking, she had considered attempting the drive to Community Church, but by the time she had warmed a fresh biscuit she realized she wasn’t ready to brave the hour-long service. In fact, she still hadn’t turned the key in the ignition of her new car. Each day she practiced sitting behind the wheel, thinking positive thoughts. Each day she stayed a little longer, felt a little calmer. Today, at some point, she was going to attempt her first drive. But small steps were in order.
    Coffee on the porch had become a ritual. Now she could not imagine a time when she hadn’t sat quietly for some portion of each day and observed the world around her. Without a guide, she’d made up names for the birds she couldn’t identify. The cell phone bird had a song with brief, regular pauses between trilled repeats. The doorbell bird could make itself heard over the noisiest party.
    She heard a rustling on the ground and casually glanced over the porch’s edge, expecting chipmunks or squirrels. Instead, she saw the head of a snake. She froze, and her heart began to pound. The snake was coming from under the porch. And coming.
    And coming.
    By the time the snake was completely free, the part of her brain that was still working told her it was a good seven feet long.
    She made mental notes so she could describe it to someone. The scales were shiny and black, although the underbelly looked white. There was good news. She neither saw nor heard rattles, and the head was not the triangular shape of a pit viper. She and Isaac had hiked in enough wild terrain for her to have a basic knowledge of poisonous snakes. This one was harmless.
    Of course the bad news was that the longest snake she had ever seen, probably the longest snake in existence, was living under her porch.
    “Oh, Lord.” She closed her eyes, then snapped them open again. If ever there was a right moment to observe the world around her, this would be the one. The snake slithered—and there, she thought, was an appropriate verb—toward the woods east of the house and, after a while, disappeared.
    “I am not alone here. More good news.” She tried to think what she should do.
    She wasn’t particularly afraid of snakes. She had handled them with supervision, observed them behind glass, appreciated, at a distance, snakes on the trails she and Isaac hiked. Never, though, had she lived on top of one. At times she had been annoyed by the neighbors on the floor below her D.C. condo. But those young men were paragons in comparison to Slithering Godzilla, who was now having a leisurely breakfast of bird or beast before his next nap under her new home.
    Maybe he didn’t live there. Maybe he had just dropped in, found it not to his liking and gone to find better digs.
    She pondered that. When she’d decided to renovate, one of the first things she’d asked Dabney to do was chink the logs. Elsewhere, he had plugged up every possible hole, too. She knew country houses came with field mice bonuses, and she had wanted the best possible prevention. The snake would have a tough time getting inside either portion of the cabin. Heck, this snake was so big he’d have trouble worming his way through a porthole.
    So, rationally, there was little chance this guy was going to get inside. Besides, snakes were more frightened of people than people were of snakes. Not that she’d ever met anyone who